


Spiked

by Talkir



Category: Original Work, World of Warcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 01:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21045725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talkir/pseuds/Talkir
Summary: Events take place before the burning of Teldrassil.This was going to be a way of linking two plots - the one we finished at the end of Legion and the beginning of the one we had planned for BFA but... BFA isn't a fun game, so we all cancelled our subs rather than keep playing just for the sake of an RP plot.





	Spiked

Enchantments swirled in the water. A naga’s claw tested one gently, as if it were tuning the strings of a harp.

Nazzachar had finally found the perfect location for his summoning ritual. The configuration of ley-lines, the coming position of the sun, the ancient Troll voodoos still worked into the stones of the submerged ruins.

He and his minions had slithered up and down the coasts of Azeroth for years searching for a spot just like this one, and finally, in the bright sunshine and warm shallows of Stranglethorn’s beaches, he was ready for the ritual.

*

“Quinn, you can order all of our friends to go somewhere, if you wanted to, agreed?” asked Norran. It was a bakingly hot morning in Orgrimmar, and he had found Raquinn eating breakfast at the table in the common room. 

Raquinn narrowed her eye at him and took a bite of cactus apple before answering.

“I suppochse. Why?”

“Would you also agree that paying two dozen mercenaries to do more or less nothing because we feel too guilty for killing their boss to let them go is pointless?”

Raquinn crunched on the apple. Hadn’t thought of it like that before, she thought.

“Yes…”

“So you’d agree that if I had a plan to boost morale and give everyone something to do for a few days, we should do it?”

The orc stopped chewing for a moment. She swallowed.

“We’re not paying a bunch of contract killers to go on a team building retreat with us because you’re bored.”

There was an empty half second of silence. He looked at her blankly, but she could sense the cogs whirring behind his eyes.

“No. Of course not. I’m not bored, so that statement isn’t true.”

“Okay,” Raquinn paused. “Then I agree.”

Norran beamed. He reached under the table she was sitting at and pulled out a leather-bound trunk, heaving it in front of her.

“Stranglethorn! Beach! PAAARRRTTTYYYY!”

*

Tael’kir stood a gravestone at the beach; cold, immutable, and completely out of place. He and his companion had set up a large umbrella and a carpet of beach towels on the edge of their group, with a wind break staked into the ground to turn them away from the garish colours of the parasols and picnic blankets for the rest of the group. 

The orcish death knight had found no joy in food or companionship since his death in Northrend half a decade ago. His mission partner, Thea’vi, had no such excuse, but she had chosen to retire to a deck chair in his secluded corner nonetheless. While she was a living, breathing, pink-skinned blood elf, her demeanor could be as cold as his own at times. Probably why we get on so well, Tael’kir mused. His eyes cast over her briefly. Ten years ago, he might have felt something towards a pretty elf in a bikini, but not anymore. 

His eyes slid away easily, and he grimly took stock of where everyone else had settled. The sound of laughter and splashing water drifted towards him, punctuated by the gentle waves as the rolled against the white sand. A couple of goblins, both with names that sounded ridiculous to Tael’kir’s ears, were paddling in the brine. Stinkums, the more muscular of the pair, seemed to glow with cheerfulness in the bright light. The other, Confit, seemed to be the polar opposite - skinny, grumpy, and with a grim pallor to her. This one’s dark aura seemed offset by the elaborate looking cocktail she was holding, but Tael’kir couldn’t stop himself looking away when she shot a glance over at him.

Over the gently rolling waves, he could hear the paff, paff of a volleyball as it was bashed back and forth. Raquinn and her mate against Norran and Plainrunner. The future of the Grimgaze clan against my least favourite pair of tauren. He had seen that skinny undead creature wade out to sea wearing what looked like a seal-skin body stocking. Tael’kir didn’t see her as much more than a diseased human, and Calico - a name chosen after her death, no doubt - had a freakish skill at stealth that did nothing to set his mind at ease about her. She slipped between the waves, the water just creeping up and up until she vanished. Forsaken do not generally float. The less thought about there the better. He looked over his shoulder. He could hear the pandaren chattering to each other just on the other side of the windbreak, and on the dunes where the beach began to turn to grass, Tonteel was sitting speaking to a goblin with a reporter’s notepad. 

He really hadn't wanted to come. An undead knight of the Ebon Blade had no place partying on a beach. That said, the rest of the company did include his daughter and ex-wife, who in his view, were becoming entirely too friendly as of late. The two hadn't even met until recently. What that tauren up to? Was she trying to turn Raquinn against him? She had turned against him quickly enough when she learned that he had returned from death. He would not allow his daughter to slip away from him in the same way. 

If spending a weekend at the beach was the cost for ensuring Raquinn would continue on the straight and narrow path of a true orcish leader, then so be it. She was too young for her role, but she seemed to have garnered a following nonetheless. She needed his guidance, not some flowery advice from a couple of nature loving fur-

“Would you please stop grinding your teeth?” Tael'kir looked down to see Thea’vi reclining on a sun lounger, just outside of the circle of shade provided by their parasol. She peered at him over slightly lowered circular sunglasses.

“And stop staring over the windbreaker like some kind of drooling forest troll,” Thea'vi finished, sliding the glasses back up her nose and returning to her sunbathing. “Who are you even watching?”

Tael'kir shifted his gaze to the small beach encampment the company had erected.

“Just keeping watch,” the old orc began, slowly realising that this excuse wouldn't be adequate for the elf. “Stranglethorn is too close to Stormwind for my liking.”

“Mmmhmm,” came the reply from Thea’vi, who had thankfully already lost interest. No more questions from her about Plainrunner and Raquinn.

“Stormwind is almost half the continent away, isn’t it?”

Tael’kir turned his head slowly to look behind him. Sitting cross-legged on a towel in the shade was Jannesra, one of the newer recruits from the Shal’dorei. She wore a wide-brimmed floppy hat, and was feverishly coating any and all of her exposed skin with a white paste. She claimed that it was an alchemical concoction to block the sun from hitting her skin, but it wasn’t anything Tael had heard of before.

He looked at her and said nothing.

Jannesra squirmed, twisting her fingers into knots.

“D-do you hear Betsi?”, she forced out. “I think I hear Betsi. I’d better go and see what she wants”. With that, she stood and scurried off across the white sand.

*

Jann didn't have to go far before she found herself in more pleasant company. The next pandaren had commandeered an enchanted crate she had set up which would refill with snow whenever some melted. She was pleased to see it was holding up to the work they were putting it through; the crate had been filled with corked glass bottles of brew until it bristled like a porcupine, and now all three of the bear-like creatures were sitting with their backs to it. They reminded Jannesra of a pile of patch-work dolls, each one with their unique pattern of coloured splodges on their fur. One brown, one black, one red.

Chen noticed her watching and beckoned to her, and she approached with a shy wave. His orcish was terrible, but to be fair, it was better than her Common (“Yes”, “No”, and “I surrender, please contact Orgrimmar on my behalf”) or her Pandaren (“Yes”, “No”, “A glass of wine and some fried rice, please”). He and Jann had shared a few pleasantries on the trip from Stonard; he was friendly enough, despite spending the majority of his time around humans. He wasn’t too hard on the eyes, either. Jann did wonder about his relationship to Minwei. They had arrived together and they seemed to be fairly intimate - she was currently resting her head on his bare shoulder - but Jann didn't get a sense of romance from their relationship.

Chen started to gently wave the bottle of brew he was offering her back and forth in front of her face. At this, she realised she had been distracted and staring slack-jawed at the bare-chested and bare-thighed pandaren. Face flushing, she took the drink, and the other two pandaren burst out laughing. Minwei had the grace to quickly hide her mouth behind a hand, but Lao, the red-furred member of the trio, had no such shame. Jann felt her face get even hotter than it had been when Tael’kir had been staring down at her.

Jann pursed her lips. She looked down at the bottle she had been given and began to tug at the cork. Lao started laughing again, which only made Jann struggle harder. As she felt her eyes start to sting, Chen was on his feet in front of her.

“It is fine,” he said in stilted Orcish, smiling all the while. “It is fine.”

He gently took a hold of the bottle beneath Jann’s grip, and pointed to a twist of wire around the base of the cork. Then, he turned his spare paw as if he was turning a key. Jann smiled and cast a quick glance up at Chen’s face. He was grinning, but she didn’t feel humiliated or chastised. She just felt dizzy. The heat?

She was still keenly aware of her embarrassment from zoning out a few moments earlier, and this kept her mind present enough to twist the wire holding the cork into the bottle. Jann didn’t really watch what she was doing as she smiled back at Chen’s wide grin. He’s as tall as me, she found herself thinking.

Suddenly, a loud bang shook her from her reverie, quickly followed by her hands getting wet. The cork had popped, and the liquid inside was quickly escaping over her fingers in the form of millions of tiny white bubbles.

“NO!”, bellowed Chen, falling back into Common. Jann didn’t know what to do. Arcwine never used to do this!

She panicked. As she looked from Chen’s distraught face to the wasted beer flowing over her fingers, she caught a glimpse of Minwei and Lao trying to get a look around Chen at what was happening. Shame welled up inside her and she acted on instinct. She opened her mouth, shoved the neck of the bottle inside, and tried to swallow as much as she could.

She immediately knew she’d made the wrong choice. The fizz was too much for her. It felt like an explosion of bubbles in the back of her throat that shot up her nose. She gagged and snorted at the same time. She was vaguely aware this had sent a spray of beer and snot in Chen’s direction, but the fizz had completely overwhelmed her sinuses and Jann couldn’t open her eyes to see the damage. She clapped her hand to her mouth and coughed, eyes streaming with tears. 

And that’s when the volleyball hit her in the face.

*

“I shouted for her to move...” Raquinn said. 

Terr’ji patted her on the back, her lips drawn to a tight line. This game was over for now. Their opponents had fled the scene to deal with the casualty - Leichia immediately gasping in shock and running to the fallen elf, Norran turning to frown deeply at Raquinn before walking after his partner to see if any damage had been done.

“That was a good shot, if the elf was who you were aimin’ for. What she ever do to you?” Terr’ji asked Raquinn in a flat tone. She didn’t reply.

“Ya be stickin’ to archery in future, maybe?” Dram’fon chided. The troll had been sitting in a deckchair next to the net, acting as referee for the match.

“You can shut up,” Raquinn shot back at him. “Half of your calls have been making the game easy on the druids.” 

“I be callin’ ‘em as I see ‘em.” Dram’fon added a shrug to his response.

Terr’ji laughed, and shot a few words in Zandali at Dram’fon. Her hair bobbed gently. It was tied up in an unruly fountain of locks, masquerading as a ponytail. I need to learn some more Zandali. What’s she calling him? Gears turned in Raquinn’s head as her girlfriend spoke, trying to slot together what basic grammar and vocabulary she had.

Whatever Terr’ji said had been loud enough for Dram’fon to hear, and cutting enough to turn his expression into curdled milk. The only comeback he managed to summon was a quiet “Yeah, yeah,” in orcish.

Raquinn gritted her teeth and stepped towards him to pick up her sarong from the pile it was lying in next to his chair. Norran’s luridly coloured shirt was next to it, and she scooped it up too. A crowd had formed around Jannesra’s prostrate form, and Raquinn made her way to join them. Neither of the trolls followed as she wrapped the light sarong around her waist.

Norran was keeping a respectful distance from the downed elf as Leichia and Minwei bent over her. He turned with a stern expression and Raquinn handed him his shirt.

“Draw?”, she asked hopefully.

“No, we were wiping the floor with you. You decided to try and murder my dear friend Jann to get out of it.” Norran looked back at Jannesra, and Raquinn followed his gaze. Leichia was fanning her with an ornate notebook. Raquinn had seen Jannesra writing in it sometimes, and was surprised to see anyone else had been able to touch it. 

“Most of all, we won on moral grounds,” Norran finished.

Jann stirred and the notebook popped out of existence in front of her face, leaving Leichia empty handed. The elf started to ease her head up, but Minwei put a paw on her shoulder.

“There is no rush. Lay still in the shade for a moment,” the Pandaren said. She raised her head to the crowd. “Give her space, please.” 

Raquinn looked around. It seemed like everyone had come over to see what the commotion was about. Thea’vi and her father had poked their heads over their windbreak, the blood elf peering over her sunglasses while Tael’kir’s face held its usual unreadable expression. A pair of goblins appeared at each of Raquinn’s legs, one with a “Yikes!” and the other with a “Nice shot, boss lady”. 

She looked down at Stinkums and Confit respectively, bewildered that everyone had come to find out what was happening. Does no one have anything better to be doing? She grit her teeth, doing her best to swallow the overwhelming sense of attention that was coming to rest on her.

She turned to retreat from the crowd, but instead came face-to-chest with Tonteel. Raquinn stumbled, trying to avoid burying her face in her fur.

“Am I needed?”, the healer asked.

“NO!”, bellowed Raquinn, all of her frustration at the situation snapping out at once at a completely undeserving target. Silence spread like spilled treacle through the congregation. Tonteel merely cocked her head and looked down at her, putting her hands on her hips. 

“No, thank you?”, Tonteel eventually prompted in a calm voice. Raquinn closed her eye and sighed deeply.

“No, thank you,” she confirmed.

With nowhere left to retreat, Raquinn turned back towards the silent crowd and opened her mouth to speak.

And then, the sand around them exploded.

*

Dram’fon and Terr’ji watched as a huge plume of sand erupted up around the group of their friends. Bodies, beach towels and picnic baskets were sent cascading into the air as a great black mass rose like a cracking whip out from under the sand.

“Gahz’rilla?” said Dram’fon, in awe of the catastrophe in front of them.

Terr’ji only managed a “Huh?” before the other troll was down on all fours. Thick, dark turquoise bristles sprouted from his skin and erupted into fur. Dagger-length bear claws grew from the ends of his quickly thickening limbs. He started moving almost immediately, leaving Terr’ji standing in the rain of debris and sand feeling totally unprepared, wearing just a floral-patterned bikini. 

This was frustrating. She only had one concealed knife in this outfit.

*

“HYYYYYYDRAAAAAA!”, came the gravelly cry of what could only have been a Forsaken. Sand fell around her like rain. Lao lifted her face off the ground and looked around. 

She was a little dazed, and had landed on something hard. The sky was moving overhead. That’s strange. Did I land on my head? She tried to shift her arms out from under her and grab hold of the ground with her paws to steady herself and get her bearings. 

Instead, she suddenly slid horizontally, only managing to stop herself by gripping the ground as hard as she could. She was woefully underdressed for this kind of excitement, she thought, as her belly and arms scraped against the rough ground.

Then, she realised what was happening. She wasn’t lying on the ground - she was on the back of something scaley and huge. The sky wasn’t moving, it just looked like it was whenever the beast shifted its weight.

Before she slid again, Lao dug her claws into the creature’s back as best she could. She found purchase around the edges of a scale half the size she was and clung firm. 

She continued to cling to the scale as it popped away from the skin of the hydra and plummeted to the sand, taking her with it.

*

Raquinn scrambled to her feet. She had been thrown sideways rather than upwards, and raced over beach party debris and great rents in the sand to arm herself. What few weapons they had brought had been dumped at the center of the gathering, and had probably been flung all across the beach when the creature surfaced. We need the casters to be at 100% if the rest of us won’t have our weapons, she thought as she ducked and dived through falling detritus. 

There was a light pattering of sand falling from the giant’s body that was being shaken off as it moved, but there was something bigger falling around her, too. Black shards of chitin as tall as her smashed into the sand around Raquinn as she ran. Scales? 

She didn’t see anyone else until she came to a low dune of sand and turned to take in the situation.

Immediately, she was struck by the size of the creature. Easily fifteen or twenty meters tall, it was the biggest hydra Raquinn had ever seen. Its three heads twisted, coiled, and snapped out around it; two feet with claws as big as Wargs stamped and dragged at the figures in the sand nearby. Raquinn could just about make out Dram’fon in bear form keeping the feet and one of the heads busy.

Nearby, she noticed that a few different members of the team were floating gently to the sand. Her father and Thea’vi touched down, and were immediately set upon by one of the heads. They’re unarmed and practically naked, thought Raquinn. They don’t stand a chance! She clenched her fists, feeling useless without a bow at this distance.

Tael’kir threw himself in front of Thea’vi and thrust his hands into the beast’s maw, gripping its upper and lower teeth at the same time and stopping it from snapping closed around him.

The air caught in Raquinn’s chest. At the same time as the attack on her father, one of the hydra’s feet had pinned Dram’fon to the sand on his back. Another head came in to snap at him, and he barely kept it away by raking at it with a single free paw. The hydra’s foot shifted to pin the paw down, and the head came in again. 

Out of nowhere, Terr’ji leapt at the beast’s head. Raquinn couldn’t make out details at this distance, but the troll, untied hair streaming wildly in the wind, lashed out hydra. Something small and shiny in her hand flashed in the sun towards one of the monster’s eyes, and it reared away, screaming like a thousand panes of glass shattering. The strike made it reassess its footing, and Dram’fon heaved himself out from under it.

The third head, thankfully, didn’t seem interested in attacking the people on the ground. It reeled its neck around in the air as if it were a fishing rod being used to land something huge. Raquinn quickly saw the reason why - the head stopped lashing about at nothing and slowly opened its mouth. Or, rather, a skinny forsaken wearing a wetsuit and a diving mask was opening its mouth for it… From the inside.

Calico was prying open its teeth like a giant, stubborn oyster, one foot on the ragged rows of lower teeth and both hands reaching up into the roof of the creature’s mouth. Raquinn’s fingers itched to grip a bow and fill that gaping maw with arrows, but all she had to hand were a few splinters of wood from their supply crates. 

Raquinn’s mind raced. Everyone was fighting their own battles trying to stay alive. She couldn’t expect Terr’ji and Dram’fon to be aware of Calico or Tael’kir in order to work together. 

She cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed out to Terr’ji, but her voice was instantly lost in a roar from the hydra. She grimaced in frustration and brought her hands to her mouth again, but something stopped her. One of the scales that had fallen from the hydra and come to rest nearby where she was standing seemed to be quivering. She turned her gaze to it in time to see its outer shell unwind like a grotesque blossoming flower. It rearranged neatly into a hideous arrangement of spikes, insect-like jaws, and serrated mandibles. Two glowing yellow eyes popped into existence above the mandibles and blinked twice in Raquinn’s direction, before the mouth peeled open and let loose a screech. The cry was echoed by dozens of other voices up and down the beach as the creature’s siblings awoke in response to the hydra’s call. 

*

“HYYYYYYDRAAAAAA!”, came the cry, as if from a wounded animal. The sound reached Tonteel in the quiet of mid-air. She seemed to hang there for a second… Before she realised that she was slowly barreling forwards and her arms were flailing wildly. 

Levitation was a fairly basic cantrip that tauren seers were taught early in their training. It wasn’t true flight, but it had saved almost as many lives in her time as some of her healing spells. She shut her eyes tightly against the distraction of the world hurtling by around her and said a quiet prayer. 

When she opened her eyes, the blue of the sky was firmly above her, and the sand and jungle was below. She caught a brief glimpse of the huge black creature that had erupted from the sand and thrown them into the air, but her mind was quickly drawn away as she saw a screaming green blur rush by her, followed by another. Acting more on instinct than conscious thought, Tonteel began throwing levitate spells out as quickly as she could summon them. 

She caught the pair of goblins before they hit the ground, searched for more targets. She tossed out three spells towards Chen, Minwei and Jannesra, causing them to cascade down to the sand in a neat line. Six levitations in a row was more than she’d ever cast at once before, and despite the drain, she looked around searching for more people above and around her. Far above, she spotted Thea’vi and Tael’kir floating gently. She hadn’t seen the elf’s light magic used before; it was good to know that she was at least that competent.

Tonteel and her gently hovering congregation set down on the beach between the hydra and the sea, each with a quiet paff. Stinkums, the more muscular of the pair of the goblins, wasted no time in scooping up and brandishing a stick and a wooden plank that had once been the corner of a crate. She held the plank at the corner so that it ran down the length of her arm like a shield, and then sprinted at the hydra with a wild abandon that Tonteel had never seen in a goblin before.

“Ugh. That idiot is going to get us all killed,” Confit commented with a dismissive wave of her hand. This goblin was wearing a black bikini with a skull clasp holding the ensemble together at the center of her chest, and Tonteel couldn’t quite take her devil-may-care attitude seriously.

“Then hadn’t we best help her, to stop that happening?” Tonteel asked. She started to jog after Stinkums.

Minwei stopped her in her tracks by grabbing her upper arm.

“Is that wise? Shouldn’t we come up with a plan to fight this thing, first?” The pandaren asked with a worried look on her face. 

“Will you tell me once you have one?” Tonteel tugged her arm away from Minwei. “I have a goblin I need to stop from being stepped on. Come on, little one.” She turned away from Minwei and took Confit by the hand. She tugged her along, ignoring her protests as she headed directly for the fray.

*

WHAM.

Lao hit the ground in a crater of sand a few metres away from the scale she had pulled from the hydra’s back. As she came to and began to sit up, the scale started to unfurl like a butterfly’s wings as it leaves its cocoon, resolving itself into a chittering insect of some kind.

The pandaren quickly scrambled to her feet and raised her fists, almost laughing at the foolishness of trying to fight something like this unarmed. She only barely noticed the commotion of another fight over the crest of the crater she was in, forcing herself to focus all of her attention on the creature that was clacking its mandibles in front of her.

“C’mon, let’s see what you’re made of!”, she taunted. She hardly had time to finish her sentence before it did just that; the creature shot towards her, blade-like legs cutting into the sand.

Lao shifted her footing, preparing herself to leap over it’s charge and grab hold of the creature from above. When it was within a few feet of her, she made her move, but the beast must have seen what she was planning in how she held herself. It too leapt up, and its protruding mandibles caught her in the stomach and dug in.

The next thing she knew, she was flat on her back again with the wind knocked out of her. The monster was over her, it’s face to hers. Her belly burned where it had bitten her. It roared a horrible grating noise and reared back. Lao shut her eyes.

WHAM.

She opened one eye. The monster was gagging on the business end of a... parasol? 

Lao’s gaze followed the closed beach umbrella from its cloth-wrapped and grizzly end, down the wooden shaft. At the other end, standing above her, Raquinn gripped it in a combat stance. The make-shift polearm was thrust about a quarter of its length into the beast’s gullet. Green orcish muscle tensed under her skin and seemed to flow like water from her powerful torso. 

Lao met Raquinn’s eye. 

“Move!”

Lao snapped out of it and obeyed as quickly as she could, paws pushing against the sand. The monster wasn’t dead, and it was doing its best to remind her of that. Legs as long and as sharp as swords stabbed down around Lao. 

Each of its strikes was completely blind, as Raquinn advanced further on the creature. Another thrust with the parasol accompanied each step, jamming it further into the monster and keeping it’s gaze up on the orc.

Lao crawled backwards past Raquinn, away from the stabbing legs of the creature. She jumped slightly as a thick, furry, hooved leg stirred the sand next to her. Her head whipped around to find Norran patting her on the shoulder as he walked by her.

The tauren was silent, which was the first thing that gave away something was happening. Lao watched silently as he took another few steps towards the monster, coming to a stop a few feet to Raquinn’s side.

Leichera appeared next to Lao.

“Are you injured?”, she asked, crouching next to her and looking down her body. She found Lao’s paw pressed against a bloody patch in her belly fur.

“A bit,”, she answered, doing her best to underplay how much of a bite the thing had taken out of her.

“You brave thing. Let me see,” Leichera said, gently peeling Lao’s paw away from the wound. She winced, but the druid didn’t seem phased at all as a pump of blood squeezed down Lao’s torso.

Across the crater, the scale monster was still alive.

“Hold it… Still”, Norran grumbled in a low voice.

“Easier said than done,” came the orc’s reply. It was almost theatrically punctuated by the monster pushing back against Raquinn’s improvised spear, its mandibles clacking frantically against the wood.

Norran raised his arms into the air, and the insect-like monster seemed to grow hotter. As the temperature raised, Lao quickly realised that it wasn’t the insect itself, but the air around it. Just as she fully understood what was happening, a blinding column of light coming from the direction of the sun consumed the beast and half of Raquinn’s beach umbrella.

As the light faded, the blackened husk of the creature fell to one side with a quiet paff. 

Norran snorted derisively. 

“All done,” came Leichera’s voice at Lao’s side. The tauren smiled at her, and she looked down and prodded at her stomach. Her fur was still matted with blood, but the pain was gone and her skin completely whole.

“Three down. Ten to go” said Raquinn, as she turned towards Lao and Leichera, discarding the short, burnt piece of wood that remained of her weapon.

“I know you’re a fighter, not a counter, but there’s more than ten of these things to go,” Norran objected.

The pounding of the Hydra’s steps were impossible to ignore.

“And that thing!” Lao said, pointing at the gargantuan creature, two of its heads visible over the edge of the crater.

Raquinn set her jaw.

“I was talking about the others. We’re getting the fuck out of here.”  
*

Jannesra couldn’t take in the chaos around her fast enough.

Her face was still smarting from being smacked by the volleyball, and she could see that her friends were fighting a losing battle.

Chittering from the monsters around her was drilling into her brain, the sound a constant throbbing that buried her thoughts and made spell casting nearly impossible. Chen and Minwei were keeping them at bay, but looked completely ridiculous as they battled unarmed, and largely undressed. 

Flashes of lightning crackled from Minwei’s hands, each fork leaving blackened scars in the thick chitin of the creatures. Chen ducked and dived, landing blow after blow on the monsters, keeping them guessing as to where he would strike from next. 

Once already, Chen had caught a bleeding slash from one of the monster’s legs across the chest. He hardly had time to cry out before Minwei had thrust her hands in his direction, and healing waters condensed out of the air to wash the cut away - not leaving a scar, but doing nothing to get the blood out of his fur.

But even working together, the pandaren weren’t succeeding in bringing their foes down.

Away from the shoreline, the battle with the Hydra raged on. Tael’kir had picked up and lobbed Stinkums up onto the thing’s haunch, and she was now casting around in a fountain of gore weilding a bloody stump of wood. The busty goblin’s golden eyes flashed through the red mist of gore she had surrounded herself with, but if she was hurting the thing, it wasn’t showing it.

The heads still snapped and raged at the others, not giving a hint of fatigue. Thea’vi and Tonteel were dazzling beacons of light as they continuously cast shield and spell over Dram’fon and Tael’kir as they drew the brunt of the creature’s ire. Both the bear and the orc were flagging, though; Dram’fon’s tongue lolling from the corner of his mouth and Tael’kir moving sluggishly, even for him.

Jannesra caught a quick glimpse of Terr’ji gripping onto one of the Hydra’s necks. She seemed to be using something sharp to dig into between the thing’s scales and pull herself up, and whatever she was using to climb was gouging a bloody trail as she went.

She was nearly at the head now, and Jann watched with the breath catching in her throat as the troll nimbly swung herself onto the thing’s face.

She clamped her eyes shut as the Hydra roared in shock and flung its head back. When she opened them again, she expected to see Terr’ji flung from her perch and sailing through the sky to her doom.

The troll was nowhere to be seen.

Jann cast her eyes around, heart thumping even faster. She scanned the sky, the beach, the body of the Hydra. Nothing. She felt the blood drain from her face when the realisation hit her.

*  
“This be disgustin’, ya know.”

“I’ve been in worse.”

“Ya been dead. I know ya been in worse.”

Calico’s eyes glowed an eerie yellow in the darkness of the Hydra’s mouth. The gentle light from her eyes was probably a reflection of whatever magic it was that animated her corpse, but Terr’ji was always reminded of how an animal’s eyes might reflect the light of a campfire it was circling. Not enough to illuminate anything, but enough for Terr’ji to see where her partner in crime was crouched.

The soft, wet, floor squelched in the darkness. 

“You must feel at home in this huge wet cavern. Remind you of your girlfriend?”

“Augh. Ya be wanting me to leave ya here?”

A rasping laugh came from Calico, like wood dragged across stone. Her eyes turned away.

Sounds of battle from outside were muffled in here, like distant drums. Inside the Hydra’s mouth, there was a quiet tink of bone on bone. Calico must have reached out and touched its teeth.

“Help me open its mouth again. We can get outside and jump.”

“That’s the plan?” asked Terr’ji. “Ain’t that what you been trying?”

“It almost worked a few times,” came the undead’s reply.

“I was just gonna stab our way outta here.”

Calico’s eyes flashed into sight again.

“You brought a weapon?”

“Yeah, mon. Hold me arm. I’m gonna stab its dangly bit.”

*

All three of the Hydra’s heads reared up and roared. The chorus of noise was ear-splitting.

Chen crushed his ears against his head. It was so loud that he wanted to close his eyes too, but he forced himself to keep them open and on the scale beast nearest to him.

“No!” Shouted Jannesra from behind him. She appeared at his elbow, her hand outstretched towards the Hydra. He followed her outcry and spotted two figures plummeting toward the sand. It looked like they had fallen from one of the heads, easily fifty meters in the air. They might not survive that fall.

He didn't recognise their shapes, but Jannesra obviously did. She took off in a run past him, her hands sparkling with a spell. She was completely oblivious to the monster he was fighting.

It turned, following Jannesra. What is she doing? Can't she see it? 

“Look out!” Chen shouted in Pandaren, not able to summon the words in orcish under stress like this. The monster dug its legs into the ground, telegraphing it's intention to fling itself at the elf's unguarded back.

Chen moved first, hurling himself between the elf and the creature as it left the ground. He grit his teeth. Its two saw-like mandibles were fully splayed out, ready to sink into flesh. Chen shut his eyes as they dug into him, and he felt the briefest flash of satisfaction that he had caught them before they reached Jannesra.

And then the pain outweighed all other thoughts.

*

Norran entangled another monster in roots, pinning it to the ground. This time, Raquinn could only watch as he drew focused the power of the sun into a deadly blast of heat. Her hands were tightened into fists, but she felt completely useless without a weapon. They all needed to get off the beach to regroup and arm themselves.

They weren’t quite close enough to the main group at the coast yet to give the order to retreat. Each of their shouts were drowned out by the sounds of battle, spells being tossed at the massive creature and the roars of the combatants. 

This was probably the most flat-footed Raquinn had ever been caught by an enemy, and she didn’t want to make a habit of fighting with just a beach parasol and a volleyball for equipment.

With a flash of light, the creature in front of them was dead and charred. As the group began to silently move forwards, a sound like thunder cracked through the air. Raquinn winced, and when the sound didn’t stop, she looked up at the Hydra. It was rearing back, it’s middle head extended to full length into the air. A gout of blood sprayed from its mouth, and before it in midair, were two figures. The shapes were familiar - one black and white, and one blue. Calico and Terr’ji.

They were falling.

Raquinn leapt over a tangled mass of burnt chitin and roots and then threw herself head-first between the legs of another monster. Norran called out to her, but the words were lost. He, Leichera and Lao weren’t far behind, but she couldn’t wait for them. They would never reach Terr’ji in time. She would never reach Terr’ji in time, but that wasn’t stopping her.

I don’t know any spells. Her thoughts shot through her mind like the chain of a dropped anchor. I can’t catch her even if I do get there in time. I can’t heal and I can’t make her float. A leg of one of the creatures scythed at her around chest height, and she threw her legs under it and skidded by, almost oblivious to the danger. Can trolls regenerate through this sort of thing? Her eyes shot to Thea’vi and Tonteel at the Hydra’s feet. Both looked absolutely exhausted, the previously radiant glow that had surrounded the pair now turning dim. Fuck, is that the plan? Let her die and then bring her back somehow?

She watched on in useless, impotent horror.

*

Jannesra turned in time to see Chen land in a bloody heap at her feet. The monster that had dumped him there immediately bounding over his unmoving body towards her, forcing her to jump backwards.

Shit! Fuck! Shitfuckfuckfuckshit! She threw her head back and screamed. Arcane magic flowed from her core down to the tips of every part of her. She reached in every direction she could, trying to find something inside herself that could help, something that could save her friends. 

She found something. 

Time creaked  
and slowed... 

In the air, Terr’ji and Calico found that the ground wasn’t speeding up to meet them with so much enthusiasm now. Behind her, Minwei discovered that the monsters had grown sluggish enough for her to side-step them with little effort. Chen’s bleeding had slowed to a trickle by the time she arrived at his side.

Nightborne who had lived in such proximity to the Nightwell all had a drop or two of the time magic Elisande had used in the war against the Legion. But it was dangerous, and she knew it. As she channeled, she allowed herself a quiet thought thanking Elune that there were no other Nightborne in their party to judge her recklessness.

That distraction was enough to send a shooting jolt of pain through her body. The spell is in danger. She shot a look around. Still surrounded. Still falling. Still bleeding. We need… More! Shehad already broken one taboo and delved into the magics used to oppress her people. What was a few more?

Another shock of pain traveled up her spine and out to her glowing hands as she twisted the flow of arcane energy around them.

“Replicate!” she shouted. Her image split into five and floated away from her core. Five distinct floating figures - each a glowing, spitting image of herself - surrounded her. Each one stopped one of the nearby monsters in its tracks with a wave of its hands.

“Ameliorate!” she yelled. Each of her copies shone with a dazzling light, reflecting her own arcane glow back at her.  
But it wasn’t enough. She could feel the beginning of the next spell she needed forming inside her, feel the string she needed to pull on coiling inside her brain, but she didn’t have enough power.

It was all she could do to hold the spells she had woven so far together and suppress a creeping panic at the same time. Thoughts of her new friends crossed her mind, each eliciting a wince of fear for their safety. Chen’s been kind to me, and he’s going to bleed to death protecting me. 

Jannesra was powerless to stop the intrusive thoughts spilling out slowly through her mind, unable to summon the mental strength to force them away. Raquinn and Thea’vi took me in. They’re watching people they care about die because I can’t cast a spell. She thought of Norran, who had always tried to make her laugh, and of Terr’ji, who seemed so world-wise and busy but still made time to speak to her.

The sound of a popping cork. The thump of a volleyball. The flapping of a beach towel in the wind.

She opened her eyes. 

The magical copies of herself she had created were feeding her more magic. They gave off a different taste, and even looked different somehow. One was fatter, another was more muscular, and one had sprouted bull horns.

They had taken on the shapes of her friends. The flow of energy that had been coming from them turned into a roar.

“Accelerate!”, came the final call. Tears streamed down her face as she pushed all of the magic she had built up out through every inch of her skin. The blocks Jannesra had built up around her came crashing down in a torrent of arcane energy that sent sand rushing in every direction in a single prolonged gust of wind.

The dust slowly settled. When she could see again, a few diamond motes of crushed shell hung suspended in the air across the beach.

Time  
stood  
still. 

She fell to her knees.

*

Calico’s feet touched the sand gently. Their fall had decelerated so much that nearly everyone had time to come together to surround them when they touched down. They landed in the shadow of the Hydra, the creature seeming more like a building than a monster now that it wasn’t moving.

Raquinn immediately wrapped her arms around Terr’ji and lifted her up in a bear hug.

“Eeyy, put me down, mon! I had enough of bein’ in the air!”, the troll complained. 

When they separated, the boss’ face was a wet mess of tears.

Yuck, Calico thought. Thankful once again for her lack of bodily functions since dying. I’ll take the exposed bone over never doing that again.

Tael’kir cleared his throat.

“Orders… Commander….?”, the old orc asked with a measured amount of both encouragement and disappointment.

A deep, loud sniff from Raquinn was the only answer at first. She seemed to hold her breath for a few seconds, composing herself, before croaking out a word and a gesture at Norran.

“Captain.”

As Raquinn took Terr’ji’s arm and led her away, Norran immediately turned to the group and began issuing orders to organise a retreat. Calico didn’t normally have time for the big bull, but he seemed to pull together when he needed to.

Soon, an exhausted and once again troll-shaped Dram’fon was being supported by Leichia, and Chen was being propped up between Minwei and Tonteel.

Calico had nothing to offer in the way of healing, and wasn't injured herself, so found her way over to Jannesra while the others will making preparations to move. She poked at the catatonic Nightborne, but couldn't get a reaction.

Thea’vi appeared at her side.

“Let me try.”

*

Jannesra was vaguely aware of the figures around her. Had her arcane projections not dissipated...?

One of the shapes reached out a dainty hand to her shoulder, and she jolted slightly when it came into contact with her flesh. A part of her was surprised that it wasn’t merely an arcane ghost.

“Come on, young lady. It’s time to go.”

It was Thea’vi’s voice, gentle and soothing.

Jannesra stirred. She looked up at the blood elf through blurry vision.

“Thea'vi…” she managed. “Thank you…”

“For what? It was you who pulled off that spell and saved us all. But we're not out of the woods yet. Can you walk?”

Jannesra could hardly move, and only just managed to shake her head. Her vision dropped back to the sand with the effort.

She heard a sharp whistle from Thea'vi, and a few moments later, felt a pair of thick, cold arms scoop her up. She shivered against the unnatural chill, but nonetheless, quickly lost consciousness in the orc’s arms.

*

“Interloperssssss…”, hissed Nazzachar. He dabbed gently at the bleeding wounds of the great Hydra. “Don’t worry my ssssssweet. You and your children will catch up to them… In time….”

The End


End file.
